1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a sewing machine including a needle bar to which a needle is attached and a needle-bar up-and-down motion mechanism moving the needle bar up and down.
2. Related Art
A sewing machine such as a chain stitch sewing machine has conventionally been known which includes a needle-bar up-and-down motion mechanism and a looper. The needle-bar up-and-down motion mechanism moves up and down a needle bar to which a crochet needle is attached. The looper forms loop stitches in cooperation with the crochet needle. The above-described type of sewing machine includes a cutting device which is diverted to include a cutting needle protruding from a lower part of the needle bar, instead of the crochet needle and which cuts a workpiece cloth by the cutting needle.
More specifically, the chain stitch sewing machine has a head provided with a needle-bar rotating mechanism which rotates the needle bar about a central axis line of the needle bar. When the workpiece cloth is fed horizontally, the needle-bar rotating mechanism rotates the needle bar so that a blade edge of the cutting needle is oriented to a feed direction of the workpiece cloth. As a result, the chain stitch sewing machine moves the needle bar up and down to cause the blade edge oriented as described above to penetrate the workpiece cloth, thereby forming a cut. The chain stitch sewing machine repeats rotation and up-and-down motion of the needle bar while feeding the workpiece cloth to continuously form cuts in the workpiece cloth, thereby forming a desired shape. Thus, the chain stitch sewing machine can be diverted to a cutting machine which cuts out the workpiece cloth without changes in the basic construction to a large extent.